The control of contamination by microorganisms is a recognized problem in the food processing industry. The process of preparing food products is largely concerned with preventing the contamination of such food products with harmful microorganisms. For example, in the meat packing industry, many types of microorganisms can cause food poisoning if contamination takes place. These microorganisms include E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus anthracis, Campylobacter coli, Campylobacter jejuni, Yersinia enterocolitica, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, Brucella, and Clostridium. One microorganism of particular concern for the food processing industry is Listeria monocytogenes (hereinafter referred to as L. monocytogenes) since studies indicate that certain strains of L. monocytogenes can become well established in a food-processing facility and remain members of the resident microbial flora for months or years. Moreover, investigations of several outbreaks of listeriosis revealed that environmental contamination of food processing facilities was the primary source of L. monocytogenes in many commercially prepared ready-to-eat (RTE) processed foods.
In general, L. monocytogenes has a widespread occurrence in nature and is capable of surviving and growing under a variety of conditions, including growing in soil and aqueous environments. For example, L. monocytogenes has been isolated from 8.4 to 44% of samples obtained from grain fields, pastures, mud, animal feces, wildlife feeding grounds, and related sources, and can survive in moist soils for more than 295 days. Furthermore, L. monocytogenes is a nonfastious organism that thrives in cool, damp environments. Moreover, this organism can grow at temperatures typically used to refrigerate processed foods which presents particular problems for the food processing industry.
As previously mentioned, L. monocytogenes thrives in cool, damp environments which is why high populations of this organism frequently occur in floor drains of food processing facilities. These L. monocytogenes-contaminated floor drains can serve as a point of contamination for the processing plant environment and food products. Decontaminating floor drains of listerae is especially challenging because the population of L. monocytogenes is typically enveloped in a biofilm, and the biofilm provides the microorganism with unusual protection against disinfectants and conventional treatments available to control pathogens on environmental surfaces. Therefore, although major improvements have been made in food processing plant layout, equipment design, and in procedures for cleaning and sanitizing food processing facilities, controlling the widely distributed psychrotrophic L. monocytogenes in food processing facilities remains a formidable challenge for the entire food industry as demonstrated by the fact that environmental testing results indicate that L. monocytogenes continues to be introduced into food processing environments. Accordingly, a composition and method for the inhibition of microorganisms such as L. monocytogenes is desirable.